To say that spilling salt brings bad luck is just a superstition. It has absolutely no basis in the scriptures at all, and should be rejected as being unbiblical. The scriptures do not say that Lazarus ever spilled salt, however Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper shows Judas Iscariot knocking over a vessel of salt with his elbow. Some have pointed to this to say that spilling salt is bad luck. Some have said that salt was an expensive commodity at one time, so to spill salt was bad because of the loss of money one might have received from selling it. One other thought is that since salt can kill vegetation, to spill salt on the ground is to ruin whatever crop may be growing there at the time.

Wherever the superstition came from, we know that it did not come from the Bible. Neither does salt have powers to drive away negative energies or evil. There is only ONE WAY to overcome evil, and that is through the power of the Lord Jesus. As believers, we are told in Romans 12:21, “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” We overcome the evil around us by doing good through Christ. When seeking to define ‘good’ in this situation, I like to define it like this: For the believer, doing good is that which helps others and glorifies the name of God.

We do need to be so careful that what we regard as truth can be found in the Word of God. Too often we hear stories and automatically assume they come from the Bible. Many sayings that are considered to be from the Bible are not in the Bible at all. Just a few examples are:

  • Cleanliness is next to Godliness.
  • The Lord works in mysterious ways.
  • This too shall pass.
  • A fool and his money are soon parted.
  • God helps those who help themselves.None of these phrases are from the Bible, although there may be some truth in some of them. Let us be very cautious and be like the Bereans who “were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and SEARCHED THE SCRIPTURES DAILY, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11) (294.10)